Walter Munk, oceanographer, geophysicist, genius, R.I.P.

Walter Munk, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor who died Friday in La Jolla at age 101, was one of the most remarkable scientists in the world — not just San Diego. Munk’s work as both an oceanographer and geophysicist led to a 2015 tribute in The New York Times that labeled him the “Einstein of the oceans.” That’s proof of his impact.

Academics often work in obscure fields that have little relation to the larger world around them. Not Munk. In the early 1940s, he and his Scripps colleagues did pioneering work in surf forecasting, directly helping Allied forces with the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France in 1944. In the decade that followed, he did crucial research identifying the effects on the ocean of atomic and hydrogen bomb blasts. In 1991, Munk was responsible for breakthroughs in ocean acoustics with relevance for both submarine warfare and research on climate change (sound travels faster in warm water). When UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla called Munk “the most brilliant scientist I have ever known,” it was hardly hyperbole. It was cause and effect. R.I.P.

San Diego’s emergence as a worldwide hub of scientific research was the product of the hard work and brilliance of many men and women. But any Mount Rushmore of San Diego’s most important would include Walter Munk. He didn’t like being likened to Einstein. Sorry, Walter — you earned it.